News headlines in August 2019, page 8

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 07 (IPS) - Teresa Whitfield is the Director of the Policy and Mediation Division at the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. Prior to her appointment in 2016, she was Senior Adviser to the President of the International Crisis Group."

It is all about orchestration", was Martin Griffiths', the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, response to the question of what mediation in Yemen looks like today.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 07 (IPS) - It has been 74 years since a nuclear devastation took place. But a clear message stands -- that nuclear weapons must go and peace and love must reign.

"Because if we forget the horrific consequences of the use of these devices, the likelihood of repetition is increased." Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute told IPS, as the United Nations marked the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

ROME, Aug 07 (IPS) - There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, living across 90 countries. They live in all geographic regions and represent 5000 different cultures. These people are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to others yet are being forced to give up their ways of life.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 07 (IPS) - According to their own internal evaluations, both the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have huge credibility deficits due to the policy conditionalities and advice they have dispensed to developing countries in recent decades.

ROME and NEW DELHI, Aug 06 (IPS) - Horrific violence against women is unabated and rising in South Asia. On a cold night in December 2012, a ghastly crime was committed in New Delhi which stunned the world. Six men dragged helpless Nirbhaya-a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern- to the back of the bus and raped her one by one. As she kept fighting off her assailants by biting them, one of the attackers inserted a rusted rod in her private part, ripping her genital organs and insides apart. She died a few days later. One of the accused died in police custody in the Tihar Jail. The juvenile was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years' imprisonment in a reform facility, and subsequently released. The Supreme Court awarded the death penalty but legal complications have prevented its execution.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 06 (IPS) - More than 24,000 violations have been committed against children across the globe, including recruitment into armed forces, abduction, sexual violence, deprivation of basic needs, attacks on schools and hospitals-- and even murder.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 06 (IPS) - Two major humanitarian groups have warned that United States sanctions on Iran are stopping cash flows for vital humanitarian work in the country, adding another complication to the growing rift between Washington and Tehran.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 06 (IPS) - Dina Ionesco is the head of the Migration, Environment and Climate Change Division at the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has been at the forefront of efforts to study the links between migration, the environment and climate.

The Atlas of Environmental Migrationwhich gives examples dating as far back as 45,000 years ago, shows that environmental changes and natural disasters have played a role in how the population is distributed on our planet throughout history.

WASHINGTON DC, Aug 06 (IPS) - It's time we teach our children about conservation – before it's too late.

Over 100 years ago a little brown passenger pigeon named Martha died in the Cincinnati Zoo. She was the last of her breed. Just like that, in an instant, a bird species that had once numbered in the billions was wiped out forever.

LONDON, Aug 06 (IPS) - Marian Casey-Maslen is the Executive Director of CDAC Network, a platform of more than 30 humanitarian, media development, social innovation, technology, and telecommunication organisations, dedicated to saving lives and making aid more effective through communication, information exchange and community engagement.

The term ‘safeguarding' has been squarely in the spotlight in recent times and is now used to refer to all areas relating to prevention of and protection against sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment and bullying. Heightened use of the word is a direct result of the abuses that came to light in the last few years, which shook the sector and prompted an overhaul of systems, policies, procedures and entire organisations.